Charlotte Brontë: A Monograph. T. Wemyss Reid
expounded this riddle, it will be time enough to deal with that deeper problem of genius on which we are now too apt to lay presumptuous and even violent hands.
The Brontës have suffered grievously from this fashion, inasmuch as their picturesque and striking surroundings have been allowed to obscure our view of the women themselves. We have made a picture of their lives, and have filled in the mere accessories with such pre-Raphaelite minuteness that the distinct individuality of the heroines has been blurred and confused amid the general blaze of vivid colour, the crowd of "telling" points. No individual is to be blamed for this fact. The world, as we have seen, was first introduced to "Currer Bell" and her sisters under romantic circumstances; the lives of those simple, sternly-honest women were enveloped from the moment when the public made their acquaintance in a certain haze of romantic mystery; and when all had passed away, and the time came for the "many-headed beast" to demand the full satisfaction of its curiosity, it would have nothing but the completion of that romance which from the first it had figured in outline for itself.
Who then does not know the salient points of that strange and touching story which tells us how the author of "Jane Eyre" lived and died? Who is not acquainted with that grim parsonage among the hills, where the sisters dwelt amidst such uncongenial and even weird influences; living like recluses in the house of a Protestant pastor; associated with sorrow and suffering, and terrible pictures of degrading vice, during their blameless maidenhood; constructing an ideal world of their own, and dwelling in it heedless of the real world which was in motion all around them? Who has not been amused and interested by those graphic pictures of Yorkshire life in the last century, in which the local flavour is so intense and piquant, and which are hardly the less interesting because they relate to an order of things which had passed away entirely long before the Brontës appeared upon the stage? And who has not been moved by the dark tragedy of Branwell Brontë's life, hinted at rather than explicitly stated, in Mrs. Gaskell's story, but yet standing out in such prominence that those who know no better may be forgiven if they regard it as having been the powerful and all-pervading influence which made the career of the sisters what it was? The true charm of the history of the Brontës, however, does not lie in these things. It is not to be found in the surroundings of their lives, remarkable and romantic as they were, but in the women themselves, and in those characteristics of their hearts and their intellects which were independent of the accidents of condition. Charlotte herself would have been the first to repudiate the notion that there was anything strikingly exceptional in their outward circumstances. With a horror of being considered eccentric that amounted to a passion, she united an almost morbid dread of the notice of strangers. If she could ever have imagined that readers throughout the world would come to associate her name, and still more the names of her idolised sisters, with the ruder features of the Yorkshire character, or with such a domestic tragedy as that amid which her unhappy brother's life terminated, her spirit would have arisen in indignant revolt against that which she would have regarded almost in the light of a personal outrage.
HAWORTH VILLAGE.
And yet if their surroundings at Haworth had comparatively little to do with the development of the genius of the three sisters, it cannot be doubted that two influences which Mrs. Gaskell has rightly made prominent in her book did affect their characters, one in a minor, and the other in a very marked degree. The influence of the moors is to be traced both in their lives and their works; whilst far more distinctly is to be traced the influence of their father. As to the first there is little to be said in addition to that which all know already. There is a railway station now at Haworth, and all the world therefore can get to the place without difficulty or inconvenience. Yet even to-day, when the engine goes, shrieking past it many times between sunrise and sunset, Haworth is not as other places are. A little manufacturing village, sheltered in a nook among the hills and moors which stretch from the heart of Yorkshire into the heart of Lancashire, it bears the vivid impress of its situation. The moors which lie around it for miles on every side are superb during the summer and autumn months. Then Haworth is in its glory; a gray stone hamlet set in the midst of a vast sea of odorous purple, and swept by breezes which bear into its winding street the hum of the bees and the fragrance of the heather. But it is in the drear, leaden days of winter, when the moors are covered with snow, that we see what Haworth really is. Then we know that this is a place apart from the outer world; even the railway seems to have failed to bring it into the midst of that great West Riding which lies close at hand with its busy mills and multitudes; and the dullest therefore can understand that in the days when the railway was not, and Haworth lay quite by itself, neglected and unseen in its upland valley, its people must have been blessed by some at least of those insular peculiarities which distinguished the villagers of Zermatt and Pontresina before the flood of summer tourists had swept into those comparatively remote crannies of the Alps. Nurtured among these lonely moors, and accustomed, as all dwellers on thinly-peopled hillsides are, to study the skies and the weather, as the inhabitants of towns and plains study the faces of men and women, the Brontës unquestionably drew their love of nature, their affection for tempestuous winds and warring clouds, from their residence at Haworth.
But this influence was trivial compared with the hereditary influences of their father's character. Few more remarkable personalities than that of the Rev. Patrick Brontë have obtruded themselves upon the smooth uniformity of modern society. The readers of Mrs. Gaskell's biography know that the incumbent of Haworth was an eccentric man, but the full measure of his eccentricity and waywardness has never yet been revealed to the world. He was an Irishman by birth, but when still a young man he had gone to Yorkshire as a curate, and in Yorkshire he remained to the end of his days. His real name was not Brontë—regarding the origin of which word there was so much unnecessary mystery when his daughter became famous—but Prunty. Born of humble parentage in the parish of Ahaderg, County Down, he was one of a large family, all of whom were said to be remarkable for their physical strength and personal beauty. Patrick Prunty was the most remarkable member of the family, and his talents were early recognised by Mr. Tighe, the rector of Drumgooland. This gentleman undertook part at least of the cost of his education, which was completed at St. John's College, Cambridge. As to the change of name from Prunty to Brontë, many fantastic stories have been told. Amongst them is one which represents the Brontës as having derived their name from that of the Bronterres, an ancient Irish family with which they were connected. The connection may possibly have existed, but there is no doubt upon one point. The incumbent of Haworth in early life bore the name of Prunty, and it was not until very shortly, before he left Ireland for England that he changed it, at the request of his patron, Mr. Tighe, for the more euphonious appellation of Brontë. He appears to have been a strange compound of good and evil. That he was not without some good is acknowledged by all who knew him. He had kindly feelings towards most people, and he delighted in the stern rectitude which distinguished many of his Yorkshire flock. When his daughter became famous, no one was better pleased at the circumstance than he was. He cut out of every newspaper every scrap which referred to her; he was proud of her achievements, proud of her intellect, and jealous for her reputation. But throughout his whole life there was but one person with whom he had any real sympathy, and that person was himself. Passionate, self-willed, vain, habitually cold and distant in his demeanour towards those of his own household, he exhibited in a marked degree many of the characteristics which Charlotte Brontë afterwards sketched in the portrait of the Mr. Helston of "Shirley." The stranger who encountered him found a scrupulously polite gentleman of the old school, who was garrulous about his past life, and who needed nothing more than the stimulus of a glass of wine to become talkative on the subject of his conquests over the hearts of the ladies of his acquaintance. As you listened to the quaintly-attired old man who chatted on with inexhaustible volubility, you possibly conceived the idea that he was a mere fribble, gay, conceited, harmless; but at odd times a searching glance from the keen, deep-sunk eyes warned you that you also were being weighed in the balance by your companion, and that this assumption of light-hearted vanity was far from revealing the real man to you. Only those who dwelt under the same roof knew him as he really was. Among the many stories told of him by his children, there is one relating to the meek and gentle woman who was his wife, and whose lot it was to submit to persistent coldness and neglect. Somebody had given